Wielding Winds of Death
by Gypsygrrl
Summary: Kazeshini/Shuuhei one sentence challenge from LJ. A look at the relationship between Kazeshini and his wielder. Mentions of the War, other characters, and mature themes.


Written for the **kaze_shuu** 12 Sentence Challenge

**Ratings**: PG-13 to NC-17  
><strong>Characters<strong>: Shuuhei, Kazeshini, mentions of Tousen, Kensei, Tachikaze, and Kira  
><strong>Warnings<strong>: Fluff, Angst, Slash, Dark themes, implied NonCon, Kazeshini's potty mouth  
><em>AN: Yes, well...it seems I am, yet again, incapable of writing short, sweet sentences, lol. Must be all the Victorian Literature I've been reading, right? Right. Anyhow, hope you all enjoy, and comments are always love!_

_01. Tattoos_

A savage sense of satisfaction filled the spirit when Tousen finally learned of the brand boldly etched upon his protégé's cheekbone, the mark a silent reminder that someone else held a previous claim upon his wielder's soul—upon _them_—and the blind captain merely a poor substitute for his predecessor; when Kazeshini realized that Tousen had been the one who had struck their rightful captain down on that long-ago night—the anniversary of Kazeshini's birth—the spirit's icy fury had been met and matched by his wielder's, and he purred with contentment both then and later, when Shuuhei lay supine across the tattoo artist's chair, his golden skin blossoming with blue and black lines that represented Kazeshini's element and their newly discovered accord.

_02. Sharp_

Almost everything about Kazeshini was sharp: the great sweeping blades of the dual scythes that spun deadly arcs at Shuuhei's command; the predatory smile the spirit bestowed on him every time they met in the cold, snowy darkness of his Inner World; the vicious, mocking words that spilled from Kazeshini's lips as Shuuhei denied the truths the spirit offered; yet the ebony skin sheathing wiry muscles felt like velvet beneath his stroking hands, the long sweep of midnight hair tangled around them slid through his fingers like raw, coarse silk, and the delighted purr vibrating deep within the creature's chest as Shuuhei finally laid claim to what was rightfully his erased all notions of _sharp_ and replaced it with _soft_, _sleek_, and, surprisingly, _right_.

_03. Drunk_

Kazeshini raged at his increasingly intoxicated owner, violent fury manifesting as gale forces winds inside the perpetual midnight plane of his existence so that the crumbling ruins shook on its foundations (though it had been shaking all day now, ever since his master had looked up from where he had fallen and his gaze had locked on the familiar figure of a long-presumed dead man standing among other ghosts, the shaking intensifying even more when he had confronted his traitorous ex-captain and realized just how blind he had been all these years to believe in that man's lies, _you should have listened to me, fucker; stupid Master so hungry for someone to give you meaning and purpose when all you've ever needed was me you goddamn pussy-asshole-fuck_!) and of _course_ his idiot Master was simply ignoring him like he always did, steadily working his way through a bottle of sake—his third of the night—alone in the darkness of his office in the 9th, trying to drown out his fucking _sorrows_ with the burn of alcohol and hiding himself away from the man they _both_ desperately wanted to see but his wielder was too fucking _afraid_ and Kazeshini wanted to kill Tousen all over again for doing this to them (_stupid blind fuck didn't deserve us and I'm glad we killed him, we_ bathed _in his blood and stop being such a fucking pussy, you know you loved it as much as I did, fucker_) but the sound of the shoji sliding open along its track and the pulse of distantly familiar reiatsu cut right through his rage and the winds abruptly died as a hawk appeared in his sky and a tall, broad figure appeared in the doorway of his Master's office, two sets of gold eyes locked on the spirit and the dark-haired man seated in the darkened office, two voices said their names: _'Kazeshini'_/ "Hisagi Shuuhei".

_04. Ambush_

When they had been younger—much, much younger, before his Master had been snared in the web of Tousen's lies, before his Master had been taught to fear his sword and himself—Kazeshini's sneak attacks had elicited peels of childish laughter and a game of chase through the twisting streets and narrow back alleys of Rukongai, his wielder employing increasingly devious—_and brilliant, he couldn't forget his Master's brilliance_—strategies to catch the spirit as the weeks and months and years passed, both of them lost in their own little world of two; then Tousen had come on the scene and their world had shrunk and expanded, the blind man carefully excising Kazeshini and twisting Shuuhei until zanpakuto spirit and wielder stood on opposite sides of a great, windswept chasm, the thread of their connection—once so strong—strained to the point of snapping; but now Tousen was gone, fallen beneath Kazeshini's blade, and his Master's overwhelming pain drew him from the snowy confines of his plane to manifest in out-of-the-way places, lurking just around corners and waiting for his wielder to appear, pouncing on the shinigami with a wide, wide grin and a vicious jibe that was his only way of saying _Chase me, Master, just like you used to; chase me and catch me and let me hear you laugh again_ before he would vanish, hoping one day Shuuhei would hear the words beneath the taunt and be the one laying in wait, mischief lighting green eyes and a playful smile curving his lips as he pounced.

_05. Edge_

He was standing on a precipice, yawning darkness stretching off and down and out to either side and silently waiting for him to make his choice—and a choice _had_ to be made, he couldn't balance forever in his current position, even if he wanted to do just that, even if it was so much _easier_ to remain here, frozen in place and safe because he wasn't _doing_ anything more than merely existing—either way he had to decide, one way or the other; taking deep breath, he closed his eyes, listening to silence within him for one endlessly long heartbeat before hurling himself over the side, choice made, no going back, tumbling down and down and down—and was caught in lean, strong arms as the wind rose around them both.

_06. Trust_

It was quite possibly the most difficult thing he had ever done—more difficult than rising from where he lay broken and bleeding among the rubble to end the existence of a madman, more difficult than facing the silver-haired former taicho that had rescued him as a child and uttering a simple "thank you" before turning away to resume his life and stop looking to others for purpose when he was strong enough find his own—but he had to overcome his fears and reach out because Kazeshini sure as hell wouldn't, not when their relationship was damaged by truths that turned out to be lies and strained to the point of breaking beneath the crushing weight of bitterness and disappointment and animosity carefully planted and nurtured by a soft-spoken voice that had preached justice and paths of least bloodshed until Shuuhei had hated not only his sword but also himself—for zanpakuto were reflections of their wielder's souls—which was exactly what Tousen had intended and exactly what Shuuhei had to fix, trusting not in some external figure of authority but in himself and the spirit that was a part of him.

_07. Bandages_

If he hadn't been touching him, Shuuhei would have missed the minute tremor and the faint, barely discernable hitch in the other's breath as his hands slipped beneath grave-dust gray wrappings to apply healing salve to the lacerations left by their latest spar, the wounds nearly invisible against coal-black skin even from scant centimeters away, and the reaction had him glancing up the length of the spirit's lean body to find glowing blue eyes gazing down at him with the queerest of expressions that made the shinigami suddenly aware of the fine, velvety feel of the warm flesh beneath his fingers and their respective positions—Kazeshini looming above him, a predator and its prey—and it was his turn to shiver, his own breath catching in his throat as a dark hand lowered to hesitantly touch his upturned face, a faint breeze rustling the bandages draped around narrow hips and Shuuhei's wrists to loosen their hold on the one and tighten around the other to draw a soft, breathless cry of arousal from the kneeling shinigami.

_08. Fear_

More than once he'd heard his wielder mutter that he was like a Hollow, an insult that so infuriated the spirit that he'd fly into a rage that lasted for days until his Master's rising ire turned the gale-force winds howling through his Inner World arctic cold and sent Kazeshini fleeing into the crumbling ruins in search of warmth, effectively shutting him up until the next time, but the zanpakuto spirit couldn't help that he was a creature of impulse and hunger or the fact that his Master was terrified of the part of himself that Kazeshini had been born from, a fear that crippled them both and would one day get them both killed—a prophecy that had nearly come true high above the battlefield of the fake Karakura Town as Shuuhei had faced down his former captain and _fucking asked the bastard to come back_; when the traitor had kicked his Master off the side of the building, however, Kazeshini's rising fury at his wielder's stupid fucking idealism had shifted to mirror his Master's stunned disbelief at the callous action—he truly hadn't expected that—and he braced himself for the flood of despair and self-loathing he knew was going to come at any moment—only it didn't; Kazeshini nearly had a fucking orgasm as ice-cold fury swirled around him yet didn't sear his naked skin as it usually did, manifesting instead into winds that halted Shuuhei's fall and sent him soaring upwards like a sleek black bird of prey, his entire focus fixed on stopping the monster that hadn't been worthy of his devotion.

_09. Hair_

Whenever Kazeshini manifested outside his plane, the first thing his Master would do was drag him into the small chamber adjoining his bedroom and push him into a steaming tub, climbing in after him with anticipation lighting his dark eyes as he reached for the bottle of shampoo sitting on the porcelain rim; later—much, much later—they would lay curled together atop the mussed covers on his Master's bed, exhausted and aching from the bites and bruises mapping their bodies, drifting off to sleep wrapped in the silky damp tangles of the spirit's midnight hair.

_10. Chains_

He wore restraint like a shield, and Kazeshini longed to shatter that infuriating composure and set them both free of the taint left behind by that bastard of his Master's ex-captain, but no matter how much he pushed and goaded the dark-haired shinigami, his wielder retained that unflappable calm that drove the spirit insane with frustrated fury; it was therefore only pure chance that Kazeshini finally discovered the key to unlocking his Master's true nature during one of their training sessions…chance coming in the form of a mistimed dodge of a spinning scythe that resulted in the shinigami laying flat on his back in dirt with his arms pinned above his head by the long chain of the spirit's _kusarigama_ , the twin blades driven deep into the ground along either side of his body and gazing up at Kazeshini with eyes gone dark with sudden arousal, a delicate flush highlighting sharp cheekbones.

_11. Scars_

He'd chosen to keep the scars that marked his face and body so he would never forget his mistakes: the friends and fellow students lost to an ambush of Hollows no one had sensed his final year in the Academy; the various injuries he'd received in training himself to live up to the memory of the man immortalized by the bold numbers etched on his cheek, the wounds he'd received that day high atop fake Karakura when facing down his former captain—he fought to retain each and every one, arguing with whoever was working on him in the 4th when they tried to heal his injuries to invisibility until they finally gave up and let him have his way; when Kazeshini had asked why he had kept them, Shuuhei had been silent for a long moment before answering, watching the spirit's face when he was done and bracing himself for mockery that never came, receiving instead a grave nod accompanied by a quite murmur of approval.

_12. Pretty Boy_

He'd tried telling his Master that the blond fukutaicho of the 3rd was not to be trusted—how many times had he caught the melancholy little bastard looking at his wielder without Shuuhei noticing, watching the older shinigami with a calculating expression?—but his wielder ignored him as he always did, stupid fuck that he was, seduced by faked vulnerability and a pretty face; he materialized as soon as the blond left, standing over his owner's battered figure with a scowl, surveying the extent of the damage: the torn and blood-stained uniform framing his Master's long, leanly muscled body, the pale golden skin already blossoming with bruises at wrists and thighs and throat where the other vice-captain had held him down, the split lip and long shallow cut bisecting the bold black numbers etched across one high cheekbone, the sticky seed drying on Shuuhei's stomach…he took it all in, cataloging each and every insult done to his owner's person, an _I-told-you-so-you-dumb-stupid-asshole-fuck_ on the tip of his tongue as he lifted his gaze back to his Master's face, watching as Shuuhei's bruised and swollen lips twitched in a horrible parody of a smile beneath deadened, empty eyes, a _Should've listened_ rasping from a damaged throat in the gathering darkness of the otherwise silent office— and Kazeshini bit his tongue without saying anything at all, instead lifting his owner off the floor with uncharacteristic gentleness and cradling him close, silently plotting vengeance on the pretty boy that had done this.


End file.
